Jazz journalist James Hale's observations on the contemporary music scene, festivals, events and whatever he's been listening to.

Monday, December 29, 2008

Bright Moments 2008

Looking back over my list of CDs received in 2008, it's clear that it was a better-than-average year. As regular readers may recall, I set out to celebrate Anthony Braxton this year, and it turned out to be a great year for that – capped by the release of the box set of Arista recordings and Braxton's 2008 quartet set from Moscow. That worked out so well that I've decided to do the same thing with Cecil Taylor in 2009. I mined some of his catalogue this year to fill some holes in my collection, picked up some things that were recommended by colleagues, and I'm looking forward to exploring them all next year.

Personal musical highlights in 2008 include the list of great concerts already noted, of course, and my top 10 list of CDs – the definitive version of which will appear in this week's Village Voice – but also a few others. Topping the list would have to be the privilege of spending some time in the company of some masters. I'm a firm believer that you should take any chance you have to catch people like Taylor, Ornette Coleman and Wayne Shorter while they're still with us, and I was lucky enough to see all three play this year, and to spend a couple of moments expressing my thanks to Coleman and Shorter in person for all the great inspiration they've shared through their music.

So, here's to 2009. I hope you have a great musical year, and as always I look forward to hearing your reactions to the music or whatever you read here.

2 comments:

I also spent a fair amount of time listening to Anthony Braxton - but I had a broader goal of making use of the 32GB iPod Touch to rediscover the dark reaches of my music library I had archived off when I just was using a 4GB iPod after my older 40GB died.

Aside from Braxton, there was rediscovering some nice Roscoe Mitchell, finding an original album of Ahmad Jamal's live 'Pershing' show I had forgotten and never digitized before, and seeing Pat Martino in our new home of the booming metropolis of Corning NY. The access to live jazz is definitely one thing I miss since moving away from suburban Boston last year ...

James, I like that idea of focused listening. I am inspired and will have to think more about that. I guess I have been fairly focused I almost exclusively listen to music that uses the banjo these days.

About The Author

James Hale is an award-winning music journalist who writes for DownBeat and has made presentations about jazz at music festivals and conferences in North America and Europe. He is a co-author of the Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues.